Hiker breaks leg and is rescued by helicopter

Capital City Fire and Rescue and Alaska State Troopers Tuesday helped two hikers get off the West Glacier Trail, including a Florida woman with a broken leg.

Trooper Sgt. Tim Birt said a 27-year-old woman fell on slippery rocks. He said she called a friend, who in turn called state troopers and the Juneau fire department. A rope team as well as state trooper and CCFR boat crews coordinated her rescue from an area across Mendenhall Lake from the glacier visitors’ center, according to Birt. She was treated at the scene then loaded into a helicopter.

“Once she was contacted, it was determined that the rocks were too hazardous, too slippery due to the rainfall that we’ve had, so we chartered a Temsco helicopter to go in and pick her up and transport her over to the trailhead parking lot of the West Glacier Trail, where she was turned over to an EMS crew,” he said.

At the same time a 50-year-old man reported he was lost somewhere off the West Glacier Trail.

“Troopers had contact with him via his cellphone and directed him to respond towards the water on the lake, so they could find him with the riverboat. While he was doing that, he came across the trail and started hiking out, and got back to the parking lot at the same time, coincidentally, as the helicopter was delivering the woman with the broken leg,” Birt said.

The injured hiker was identified as Kristen Walling of Florida. She was taken by ambulance to Bartlett Regional Hospital.

The lost hiker was Scott Frymire of British Columbia, Canada. He reported no injuries.

An online controversy spread to the halls of city government in Anchorage on Tuesday, with accusations flying about fake news, liberal media bias and a militant Islamic training camp in Wasilla that does not exist.

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